


The Apocalypse and Other Reasons to Learn Maths

by B0nk3rs



Series: Bored of Being Nameless [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse Fix-it, Ben Hargreeves is Alive, F/M, Human Dolores (Umbrella Academy), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Apocalypse, but - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B0nk3rs/pseuds/B0nk3rs
Summary: In which Five writes a book rather than talk to anyone in his family about anything





	The Apocalypse and Other Reasons to Learn Maths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a mannequin is not always just a mannequin or the extension of your need for companionship in the desolate wasteland at the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my fellows born on the 1st October 1989- the worst is always yet to come.
> 
> To Dolores- did they name you before or after your power came in?

Dolores meets him at the end of the world. It's not love at first sight but it is a fucking relief.

Two people stranded at the end of the world and one of them can't even speak- being who she is, what she is, she'd expected to be crushed to death under the weight of the store. Instead, she's been neatly bisected and coated with a film of ash. Realising what had happened was easier with him telling her what he'd already found out. 

"You're the only person around and look at you!" He'd spat three hours after digging her out. It was _definitely_ not love at first sight. More of grief at first sight. The only person around and he's just as skinny as she is, pathetic.

They learn to make it work though, it's not as though there's any other option.

* * *

On the 1st of October, 1989, Dolores Winnipeg was conceived and born within an hour. One of 43 children to be born without their mother ever having sexual intercourse. A week later she was 1 of the 36 to not be chosen to join the Umbrella Academy.

By the time Dolores turned 14 she'd be 1 of 14 to age into adulthood. By the time Dolores Winnipeg was 15 she'd grown fully into the height and figure of a woman, she'd come to America with her mother and sisters, she'd realised how meaningless her life was to her and to everyone around her.

At 15 Dolores Winnipeg stopped living her life and entered a period that can only be labelled, existing. For the next 15 years she would not eat, sleep or piss, she would not cry, feel or move. She could still talk, and she did sometimes, but never sustained conversation and never of her own volition.

Life as a mannequin was as close to bliss as a disillusioned teenager could want to achieve. This was the rest she needed, so what if her family missed her? So what if her things would get thrown out? So what if they mourned? Dolores was already a spectator to her own life she was ready to watch someone else's now. To live someone else's.

It's not like she couldn't learn as a mannequin, Victo-

Learning was easier as a mannequin than as a human person. She'd had no variety in how many times she learned how to eat and ride a bike but if she wanted to talk she could in 4 languages now, sing in 7. Or dance a traditional waltz. And she knew degree level mathematics, can't be an empty vessel if she was filled to the brim with other people's lives.

If she ever got bored of being dressed and re-dressed in the latest fashion Dolores would let someone know. Probably. 

But then the world ended.

  
******

If seven people living on the seven continents survive the apocalypse what is the point of saying anyone else survived at all?

*******

_He dug her out of the rubble on the second day._

Her range usually wasn't very impressive at all but as she'd later find out, he'd heard her shouting all the way in Mexico.

_He'd yelled reassurances as he picked his way across the destroyed department store, telling her to 'stay calm, almost there'._

She was hauled out and nearly dropped by a horrified child. "Miss, are you aware you've been bisected?"

_He threw her in furious grief while she learnt everything he knew._

She was a talking mannequin. What the fuck.

_He disappeared into thin air at will, apparently._

It wasn't _love_ at first sight but what's a little codependence in the wake of humanity?

  
****

At 29 Dolores was 1 of 205 people to survive the first week. At 30 she was 1 of 58. By 31 there were 4 humans alive on Earth and 1 of them was plastic.

Dolores would turn 36 alone and by January 1st 2026 she'd be the most recent corpse in a sea of corpses.

***

"Dolores," there was a man in Gimbles talking to himself. He wore a sharp suit that was new but had been out of fashion since the 1940s, his hair was slicked back, the watch on his wrist was a Rolex. He'd been speaking whilst folding clothes for the past twenty minutes. He was still talking now.

"...You think fondly of this encounter if nothing else." The man tapped a stubby finger on her big toe. He bent forward to pick up his black briefcase and to place the last item of folded clothing on the cubby below her plinth.

His eyes were green.

He was thinking about the equation for time travel.

He knew her name.

She-

****

Five had turned to leave, lingering in a time he already existed was a recipe for disaster. His mark was already dead anyway, the Handler was becoming suspicious-

"Your name is Five and it's the only name you need."

The man in Gimbles reacted as if struck, he stumbled around and braced himself on a nearby rack. His green eyes blinked up at her in shock. She blinked back. 

****

Dolores Winnipeg-

Dolores Winnipeg is 23 and quite literally swooning into a man's arms, she's hyperventilating, her skin is chafing, everything is so loud-

Five catches her with burning hands that will bruise, and someone in the store gasps. It might be her. He's too much with all of her thoughts in his head, 10 years of hell with her own mind to contend with the silence. That with the scratch of a cotton suit, loud aftershave, the squeak of leather shoes, a drum in her own chest, sea in her ears-

'Breathe with me.'

 

The only thought directed to her in a 10m radius cut through her other senses like a kitchen knife.

 

Eight beats in.

 

She's being cradled bridle style.

 

Eight beats out.

 

They're over the threshold.

 

Eight beats in.

 

There's no one in range for 10 metres.

 

Eight beats out.

 

There's no one around for 10 metres.

 

Eight beats in.

 

It's just them.

 

  
'Dolores?' He sounds worried and pained. She can feel his desire to look at her face for any emotion, she's a bag of meat and chemicals dressed in stolen clothes and capable of emotions like a human person that she now is. She's a human person again.

'Dolores, are you alright with me kneeling? My arms aren't made for this'

Oh. 'Yes,' All sound is muffled but the weight of her head on her shoulders is better taken by Five's so she doesn't raise it. She continues to breathe on beat as she's lowered.

Neither of them says anything, though she can feel the bullet speed of his racing mind, for a small eternity. Another 10 years might have passed and who would Dolores be to disrupt it? Who is she now anyway?

Something needs to happen. Two lives are being reconfigured from the ground up and Dolores has to get a grip before they restart. She has to.

The arms around her tighten as if she'd conceived to leave them.

'We can figure it out' Five pushes, 'Just calm down. Just don't move.'

Just stay with me. She can feel him try to hide it but it's just them again.

Eight beats in.

It's just Five.

Eight beats out.


End file.
